How to Turn Volume Photography Into High-End Clients with Nate Peterson

Pat Miller: 00:00

I'm Pat Miller, and this is The Professional Photographer Podcast. You take senior pictures. You might even take boutique senior pictures. You know, the fancy ones. So if you're a senior picture photographer, do you have a volume business to feed the beast? You know, volume, sports teams, dance teams, band kids, theater kids, high school debate, doesn't matter–a volume business to introduce your senior picture pipeline. Well, if you're only dabbling or you haven't started, today's episode is gonna make you some money because Nate Peterson is our guest. They have a volume to boutique senior picture pipeline, and I'm not sure he would say this, but I will. They're crushing it. Crushing it. Capital C, crushing it. And they're not converting volume members to a bunch of wallets. They're converting people into the senior Grand Experience and up. If you want a steady stream of senior picture clients, you probably should have a volume business on the front end. Together, we're gonna learn from Nate Peterson next. Nate Peterson, welcome to The Professional Photographer Podcast. How are you today?

Nate Peterson: 01:20

Hey, Pat. I'm doing good. I'm really excited to be here.

Pat Miller: 01:23

Well, I'm excited you're here too because we are gonna learn a lot from you. We're gonna talk about how do we make big bucks through a channel that maybe people aren't using day to day. So we're gonna change the way people think, but they need to know who you are and what you do. So if someone just met you, how would you introduce yourself?

Nate Peterson: 01:39

Hi. My name is Nate Peterson. I'm a portrait artist in New Richmond, Wisconsin. My wife and I own and operate NP Design and Photography. We specialize in high school seniors, volume sports teams, and then we work on some commercial stuff as well.

Pat Miller: 01:53

We have had some folks on the show somewhat recently illustrating how valuable volume photography is to just the general operations of a studio. And today, we get to talk about your volume work and the senior work as well. So when do you first start to connect the dots between volume work and how it could help a studio?

Nate Peterson: 02:14

It's actually kind of the other way around. I got into photography through action sports photography through the hockey team in town. And then, one fateful day, the coach asked me, hey, do you think you could do the team photos? Because this guy wants to come in at this inopportune time for the team and doesn't seem to understand that practice is important and all these things. So, that led to doing sports teams first, and then that expanded into seniors coming to me. So it's always been a piece of what we do. However, we always looked at it as marketing only. Like, it was a, we would get to photograph these teams, and that created exposure, and we would hope that we would sell them this, at the time, $500 senior package. And I think you owned one of my kidneys, and I was your slave for a month for that price. And that was expensive back then. But that led to–now we look at volume as the stability of our entire business. That's the annual we know or assume we're going to do at least 80% of this work next year again because we deliver a good job. And so, that's the financial foundation, and it's about 40% of our overall revenue now.

Pat Miller: 03:30

Wow. That's fantastic. And it sounds like that happened kind of organically that we were doing the sports photos, and this became a marketing platform for the boutique senior pictures. So walk us through how that works. I mean, how do you tactically and tactfully introduce what you're doing for senior pictures when you're doing volume work?

Nate Peterson: 03:51

Well, I always think of every team we get to go photograph as an audition. In volume, creativity is not like the forefront. It is you set a good thing, and then you do it over and over and over and over. So you set your lighting up. You have literally tape on the floor, footprints on the floor, come stand in the good light, turn this way, do that, click. Amazing. I have a list of adjectives in my brain that are just like, so right now, "You're looking phenomenal." That is, whatever. It's just like, and then to the point these kids actually are like, "Oh, I got phenomenal" or I got, "You're a model," or whatever it be. The middle school girls, it's like, "Yes, queen," and all the little things. So I love learning that language. But the actual, what you're doing is super fast, very a lot of left-brain organization. That's where my wife comes in and gets that set. But you're really just giving a first impression to hundreds of kids a season and hoping that they kinda go, "Well, he was actually cooler than I would have thought," or whatever it'd be. And then that creates, now they've ordered something on a small scale. You're able to send them an email with the website, things like that, and they kind of go from there. On top of that, whenever we ask for what year they graduate, so we're building a database of all these different athletes or drama kids or band kids, or whatever volume group we're doing. And then the juniors, the current year juniors on the teams, we're delivering our senior magazine with their order. So we're kind of putting it right in their face that this is actually, if you enjoyed this little twenty-second spot with us, imagine the three-hour senior experience with us.

Pat Miller: 05:43

And we're joking around about how impossible it would be for, you know, yourself or someone to seem cool to some middle schoolers or high schoolers, or whatever it might be. But that impression is what it is. This is your chance to demonstrate to them, hey, I'm the cool one or I could be the person that you wanna work with, so at least you earn another at bat. And we're joking about phrases and language and stuff, but that pretty much is the game is to make a good impression. Right?

Nate Peterson: 06:10

Pretty much. I don't understand what you mean about this joking thing. This is, I am cool and no. I mean, I think the bottom line there is if you do volume too long,–our tagline was something to the effect of we make something that's boring and ordinary extraordinary or something, if I just sat on a stool and went next, click. Great. Next. It's very flat. But if you are dynamic with the person, come on in. You're you're mimicking them, like like, shoulders back a little bit. Yeah. Now you're looking cool. All these things. It's fun to take different kids that don't have a ton of confidence or they hate picture day, and they're–they come up and stand there, and I say, just kick your shoulders back. Oh, my God. Those are your muscles? Woah. Bring them or whatever. And it's just a whole, a little dance with them for twenty seconds, and you actually get a picture that their parents wanna order. And I hear feedback from our senior client parents that will say, Johnny got his pictures. I wish you guys did their team photos because whatever. So we're getting that feedback that our team photos, we actually put some effort into it. I am the photographer, so master CPP, twenty years experience doing this. We're not hiring people off the street to just go in and click a button. We're actually bantering back and forth the way professional photographers know how to do.

Pat Miller: 07:40

Absolutely. Make them look good. Make them feel good. And then they take the message home. Now you flash the senior magazine. Tell us more about that. Where did it come from, and what kind of effect does that have when they bring it home to mom and dad? Look what I have.

Nate Peterson: 07:54

That is a whole another conversation, but the magazine itself is our–we have a senior model program that is really essentially an early bird program where we're photographing 20 to 30 seniors' full experiences in the, if you're–I know you're in Wisconsin, so if I said in March, that is not great ideal weather outside, but we do have some ways to do add-ons later into the summer. We're photographing the current class; in fact, I'm done with this year's senior models, and we are working on this coming year's magazine for the class of 2026. That magazine's a 24-page, professionally printed. I used to work in magazine printing, so I love publications and trying to make something cool. We collect names and addresses from the senior models themselves. We mail that out in a plastic. It's called a polybag that is kinda like how Vogue and some of the more impressionable magazines show up in your mailbox. We wanna look like one of those. The sports order ones are an additional run of prints that we send home with them. So, basically, we wanna be the authority on senior photos. So it's a magazine full of this year's kids, lots of pictures, and then lots of articles on advice on how to approach your senior portraits, makeup tips, all that stuff, whether you use us or you don't. It's just an educational piece that kinda helps people see the difference.

Pat Miller: 09:21

And how many years have you been doing that?

Nate Peterson: 09:24

This will be our twelfth year.

Pat Miller: 09:26

Do you remember when you didn't have it and then you did have it? What was the impact of creating a physical production of the work, especially at that level, because nobody gets anything that's a hard copy of anything in the mail or handed off to them anymore. So when you added it, what was the impact?

Nate Peterson: 09:44

Huge. Because the standard, now you say, like, nobody sends anything. Back when 12-15 years ago, a postcard was a pretty good piece. And we did, like, a trifold White House accordion fold card. So that was our brochure. But now once we upped it to a magazine, granted it was $500 all in, like, you got the world from me back then. Now, we start at $1,000 for a session with an album. We call that the Grand Experience. Our average is upwards of $5,000 for a senior. So we're spending a lot to create this impression of being this high-end thing, and it's working, I guess, would be the answer to that.

Pat Miller: 10:28

That's awesome. I wanna ask, like, one or two more questions on volume, and then we'll get to converting the volume folks to the senior experience and all of that. But if you're a senior picture photographer, should you be doing volume? Should every senior photographer that can be doing volume to build that base?

Nate Peterson: 10:48

I'm going to say as an ADD right-brained creative that my wife sits and says, "You creatives, you photographers," whatever. No, I don't believe so. It takes a lot of organization. It takes a lot of communication with coaches, getting rosters, being prepared for picture day with the teams. I think if I had to add that into my job here at the studio, being a one-man show doing it, I think, would be very difficult for a lot of studios. So whether you bring in an accountant-style friend or a very organized friend to help you with that, kind of commingle it. I happened to marry somebody that was like that, and she was able to leave her career and come full-time with the studio. And that is basically, the sports line is her baby. I show up. I photograph it, and she processes everything. I just do image quality control and, otherwise, everything is handled through her. And we partner with a lot of the–you have to have a lab partner as well. So, we have a system that the orders are added into, and then it's all packaged at the lab and mailed to us in bulk, and she delivers everything. So it's a lot of time and effort and organization, and not every person like me should be doing it alone, I don't believe.

Pat Miller: 12:08

And that's a really good piece of perspective. I mean, that's very honest and very true. And if you don't have someone, contractors exist, virtual assistants are a cheat code. If you don't have someone, you can find people to help you, but I appreciate that answer. Let's now talk about the conversion. Volume photography to boutique seniors. So how many convert? Is this a 5% conversion, a 10% conversion? Like, what are we looking at?

Nate Peterson: 12:32

I put some numbers together for you. I will wanna go back to one little point that I gave it all a negative answer. The positive answer is it creates sustainability. So if you can work it out, get some partners going, it's a baseline. For us, it's a 6-figure industry before we even get going on seniors or a headshot or any other clients. We know that we have a salary coming in the door that year. So that would be the positive vibe to doing it alone or figuring out why would you go for it is yes. Do that for sure because it's a financial foundation. But, okay, conversion. So last year, we photographed 4,500 kids in volume teams.

Pat Miller: 13:14

Woah.

Nate Peterson: 13:18

There were 4,500 pictures taken, I should say. Some of those pictures are three-sport athletes, so it's the same kid throughout the year up to probably four times. We'll see some of the volleyball club, varsity, people like that, multiple sports. So it's not truly 4,500 individuals so the math is a little skewed. Five hundred nineteen of those were seniors or juniors to be seniors. So there were potential impressions. 30 seniors booked with us that were directly attributed to sports teams.

Pat Miller: 13:52

Wow.

Nate Peterson: 13:53

And so that is a 6% conversion. Reasonable. But last year, we only did 40 seniors and 30 of the 40 were from sports. So 75% of our seniors were because we do volume sports.

Pat Miller: 14:07

What a game changer. And the volume work gave you a salary and a foundation so you're not freaking out at the end of the month. So not only did it solve just the baseline cash flow issue, It also gave you the opportunity to spike the football with a very healthy senior count. And how has that trended for you over the years? Is 40 more or less than you've been doing? Do you wanna do more than 40? Where does that tolerance lie?

Nate Peterson: 14:32

In the peak years, we were between 75 and 100, and that was I was doing two a day. And when we do three- to five-hour sessions, so two a day is a long, long day. We really try and do it more boutique where today is all about Sarah. Sarah's only thing on my mind today. I'm not thinking about Charlie coming in later today. It's one person a day. Some of them are–we had a eight and a half hour senior last year all in one day. When we say boutique, it really is all about them. It can get to that full day. There's add-ons, of course, to get you up to that. But now it was by design that we kinda say 50 is our limit. So our full potential would be 50, and we're doing 40, and that's kinda meeting where we wanna be.

Pat Miller: 15:20

Let's explore that for a second. I just had the opportunity to interview Seth Godin, and Seth Godin was talking about choosing your customer. And when you choose the ideal customer that you wanna work with, it also helps you choose your future. And you've purposely gone from maybe 90 or 100 seniors to only 50 because we wanna do higher end, more valuable, more in-depth work with people. How did you make that decision, and what is the result then?

Nate Peterson: 15:48

Not quite Seth Godin, but many PPA speakers on the on the platform stages at Imaging USA, many podcasts like this, Allison Tyler Jones by name–there are just so many mentors in this industry that we are, like, education junkies, Teresa and I. We do not miss an Imaging. We go to many of the other conferences, learning that that just aiming for what you wanna be good at; in fact, even the genres, like, when I started, we did anything–newborns, weddings–basically everything there was out there, and you start to realize, oh, God. I have a newborn coming in today. Ugh. It's not my thing. Or weddings, just no. So, we've honed it down and down and down to where it's like every day is, we're doing this today, and it melds together really nice–volume, volume sports and school kids, and things like that. And then that goes with seniors and then their parents. So, like, commercial work for the parents, occasionally a family. We've kinda gone above and beyond and said we're taking families off of our website because that generic advertisement for families was drawing in the wrong inquiries. And it's really the people that appreciate what we do for senior work are who we wanna work with with families. So it's kind of like the off menu order that they can do is do you guys do family? So for you guys, of course. And not that we wanna–we always say the industry says filter–and it's not that you're aiming that anybody's better than anybody else, but you want who appreciates what you do at the highest level.

Pat Miller: 17:32

And that's a choice. The choice that you made for that medium to high starting point of the programs that you're doing. Like, I can't wait to hear all about the Grand Experience. So tell us what's in that package and how it's–like you said, you spent eight hours with one kid last year. What is that day like? Tell us about this Grand Experience and how it separates you from everyone else in the market.

Nate Peterson: 17:55

Yeah. So, I did an Imaging platform myself in 2018, I think. And there's a few different things about the out there about the Grand Experience. But in a nutshell, we wanted to do exactly that, separate or differentiate ourselves from the $100 session or the $200 session. And that shooting on spec idea that photographers do is, like, $99 special will create 100 images, and I hope you buy something. And that's just not sustainable. I don't want to I don't live to take pictures. I want to have connection and create products for people and all the things that come with a full session. So what we do is we say, the Grand Experience is a three-hour session with hair and makeup included and a 20 image hardcover eight inch album. So you get a true album with 20 images. And our goal is to tell your story. That's our tagline. So to a consumer, a session to tell your story, the story is told in a book, and it all kinda makes sense. So you're gonna get a session with this experience and this final book for a $1,000 investment, and we say an all-inclusive experience. Now the nice thing is $1,000 is the starting point that there's that kind of that filter or that sifting out who appreciates what we do if they're willing to start up there. That's how our average rises to where it is because people are in the door. There's plenty of room for upgrades. I always think of an all-inclusive vacation. You think it's all inclusive, and then there's excursions you can add on. And there's the drink token, and there's all these different upgrades along the way. And that's kind of what the Grand Experiences is. If you came in, at minimum, you're gonna get an eight inch album with 20 storytelling images about who your senior is. And I'm happy if they walk away with that because at minimum, they got something like that that will last in their life generations. There's two of those in the real world. Everybody else has chosen to upgrade along the way, and that rises to that $5,000 average in in person sales, wall art, add on files, whatever it be. So we can you can expand. The average album we sell is a 10-inch album with about 55 images in it, so it just grows and grows. And that eight-and-a-half-hour girl had 105 images in her album.

Pat Miller: 20:29

Wow. That's a good session. We like that session. We need more of those eight-and-a-half-hour sessions around here. That's fantastic.

Nate Peterson: 20:35

Six and a half is good. And that little stretch at the end is, that's grueling, but I'm getting older and it's getting harder.

Pat Miller: 20:42

I would imagine that when someone sits down in the sales session, it's as if the thousand dollars doesn't even exist. Like, that's already spent money. I know I've already spent that money. Not to you. It's all part of the overall ticket. But do you find that they come in at zero in their head, or are they still thinking I've already spent a thousand dollars?

Nate Peterson: 21:02

No. You're exactly right. That money spent is money forgotten. I'm the same way. Anything that I've put down, oh, now I'm starting at zero and upgrading from there. That I earned it. I spent it. It's gone. That's my base. Of course, I don't wanna stop there. And that's kind of the mentality they come in to. Plus, if I did my job right, there is a drool where the amount of images, that 20, there's no way we're getting down to 20. And I tell them that we do an in-person consult before we ever do the session. So I walk them through what's gonna be happening, and I take the 20-image album and I literally throw it out of the coffee table and say, you're not gonna want this. So this is a starting point. I want you to understand that from the beginning that there's two of these out there, and this is what you're gonna want. And they grasp that from the beginning. So like all good sales, the pre-sale and during the session is kind of the key to making, the sale is just confirming what you've already set the stage for.

Pat Miller: 22:01

And you may have said this, but I'm not sure if I heard it. Is this the only way that you'll do senior pictures? Is that the Grand Experience?

Nate Peterson: 22:09

Yes. That's our starting point for all senior pictures. So it's there. So, that's it. Yeah. That's the one option on the menu. You commit to that, and then when you come in and do your order is where you can upgrade. And, again, I don't like–what is that–tricking them or hiding anything. So that consult, we're sharing, I open up my sales software, and I show them this is what some people do, and this is what it's gonna be like. And once you see yourself up there, you're gonna be a lot more emotionally involved, and just prepare yourself. So they come in knowing kinda what they're gonna do on the night of the order appointment. But, yeah, that thousand dollar in the door is kind of the barrier for entry. Some people are just like, "Are you kidding me? A thousand dollars?" And they hang up. And that's the biggest piece of doing it like this that you gotta understand 519 seniors that you photographed in volume and have gotten to know, they're not all gonna come to you. There's gonna be 9 out of 10 that are gonna say no.

Pat Miller: 23:17

But the one that you'll work with will drive the average ticket to $5. And just because people need to hear it, "Hey, Nate, can I just get the digitals?" Or "Hey, Nate, can we do a $500 package?" How do you handle that?

Nate Peterson: 23:29

I'm sorry. Just to honor anybody else that's ever come here, we actually only offer the Grand Experience. There's only so many days in the season that we're able to do this, and we wanna work with you and this is what we create. Let's create this heirloom album, and that's the best way we can do it. If you wanna come in and talk about it and talk with Nate and talk about what we can paint some dreams for it, there's no obligation to do that, and we'd be happy to explain it more so we'd help you understand that.

Pat Miller: 23:58

Beautiful. One. Two, the name Grand Experience sitting at a thousand dollars, also brilliant. So high five for that. And if you're inspired by this, you really need to think about it. Because if you're offering four or five different packages and wondering why they're not choosing the one that you wanna sell, hello? Nate's telling us the answer right now. That's why it's not working. Alright, we have a little bit of time before we get out of here, but I do wanna get some more information from you because you two are just doing so well. Give us some feedback for volume photographers. If we wanna do better as a volume photographer, what are some things you've learned over the years?

Nate Peterson: 24:36

I think we kinda hit it. It's be cool, be efficient. The big thing right now is coaches. My friend hired us, the hockey coach, way back when, we come into it understanding time is money with the coach. They do not wanna be missing practice. They do not like picture day. Now that is starting to evolve with the whole media day. We have a handful of coaches that love picture day, and they donate their entire practice session to us because they want some social media images on top of things, little video clips, things like that. It's evolving where they understand the social media aspect of marketing their team to future players, to audience people coming in, spending money on the ticket. There's a lot of benefits to it. So on the one hand, be ready to come in, look organized, take control, get them in line, get through, and get out. That's like our military style going in, get it done. But then when we realize, we'll kind of even talk in with the coaches in the beginning and say, is this a a big thing to you, or do you want us in and out? Because we wanna know who we're dealing with because some coaches really don't care at all, and some are starting to care a lot more. So efficiency is kind of the key. And if you have a studio, if you only do volume, it's all efficiency. If you have a studio and you wanna make an impression on people or even if you just wanna up your volume sales, I think making an impression on them, and when that kid goes home and tells mom, "Mommy, he told me I was awesome today," or "I felt actually pretty good. I got to preview the back of it and I liked it." They actually order it. And a lot of it is we do pre-sales too for volume, but we don't have to get into that.

Pat Miller: 26:19

Yeah. What's something you learned the hard way when you were trying to convert volume to seniors?

Nate Peterson: 26:25

Something the hard way for volume was not using a lab system. We were manually processing orders ourselves, manually ordering all the parts, and then putting them into piles and sorting out who gets what. And building it all into the envelopes and packaging it ourselves. And now it's partnering up with somebody is great. As far as converting them, I think the hard thing is, like, many tears shed in the early days about why didn't Johnny hire us for senior pictures? We've been working with him forever, and it's heartbreaking that we didn't get to do it. That's just a misalignment of values, and we were too expensive, and that's okay.

Pat Miller: 27:06

But let's be real for a second. They chose them? Oh, come on. I could've done like, I mean, come on. Let's be real. Let's be real. Just saying. It's a thing.

Nate Peterson: 27:15

I don't like to bad mouth. There are days that it's like you do get the phone call. It's graduation season approaching now, and there are some people that they're like, "Oh, yeah." Some regrets out there. Yeah. Because at the time, they didn't understand it. Now the end of the high school career is coming up, they kinda go, "Yeah. Two of my friends came here, and I wish I would have." That's a little gratifying, but otherwise, I'm the same way. I'm tight on some things and luxury on other things. So it's just whatever–and sometimes it's not all the kids' fault or not all the mom's fault and not all the dad's fault. It's one of the three didn't align with with spending the money at us, and that's usually a deal breaker.

Pat Miller: 27:58

Oh, that judgment's very internal. Trust me on that. We don't have to say it out loud. It's like, oh, really? Come on, bro. Right? Let's talk about the Grand Experience. I'm sure over the years, you've had some magical moments providing that program. Give us something that stands out from a high school senior's family experience with you.

Nate Peterson: 28:15

Yeah. Well, my favorite–I'll leave his name out of it–but we had a we had a young guy come in who reminded me of me in high school, quiet, sitting between his parents and the consult. We have a survey that goes out to them beforehand and interests and stuff like that to get the ball rolling on ideas. And he didn't really fill it out much, and he's sitting between his parents. And I'm like, so what are we gonna do? And he's like, "Whatever they wanna do. Whatever. Doesn't matter." I'm like, I've never heard that before. That's not how this goes. And, okay, seriously. What's up? He goes, "I just don't think you're gonna like taking pictures of me." And I was kinda like, that's absurd. Why? You're a human with two eyes and I mean, no offense to the one-eyed humans out there. But he goes, "Because I'm not that." And he points at a picture behind me over my shoulder, which was a football player. Really the explosive looking image and everything. And I said, you're not him? And he goes, "No. I'm not interesting. I'm not an athlete. And you photograph athletes," and we look around the room, in the consultation room, and everything is sports. And I went, oh, you caught me here. Okay, so what are you? And he goes, "So you probably don't even know what Legend of Zelda is." And I'm like, dude, I'm not an athlete. So do you want me to do the theme song for you? You want me to tell you that I know that Link is not Zelda, and you want me to show you that my cousin got engaged at at Comic Con dressed as Princess Zelda. And he goes, "What?" And I went, yeah, what do you want? And he goes, "What else?" He's like, "Comic books." I'm like, well, you wanna go see my office right now? So, anyway, he kinda realized–I said, I want you to be you. And he stepped up. Like, his whole posture got big on the couch, and he literally stepped forward, and he goes, "Okay. You wanna do this?" And to this day, that session is still, like it's the–what is that? There's an opportunity to results equation that the expectation was so low and it blew everything away. And his self-confidence went from -5 to 11. And he now works for Google, and I love it. He's my favorite story ever, and I can't tell that story enough because that's the power of what we do. Like, we can take people and shape them in a very tough time for a lot of those kids in building confidence, and things like that. And that's it isn't just about–I talk a lot about making money and being sustainable and having a good business, but the side effects of what we do are what are why we do it.

Pat Miller: 30:49

But isn't that beautiful? In photography, that's the value. That's what makes it magical and something that we should defend because images are easier to create than ever. But moments like that with your clients, that's the stuff we should be valuing.

Nate Peterson: 31:05

Yeah. And that's where when you do the Grand Experience and you work with a select group of what you're good at, you're really able to hone in the time to do it to that level and change people like that. So that's what's fun.

Pat Miller: 31:24

No one blinks an eye when they spend a fortune on a psychiatrist that makes someone feel better, but people suddenly are objecting to the idea that a photographer should be a top-level profession, that it should make money and should be a higher calling. That's not how it should be. Right?

Nate Peterson: 31:42

I truly don't believe that, and I've started to hear some whispers in the industry of some of the top-level performers. And I kinda got on my high horse at SYNC this year. We were speaking, and my wife and I just purchased a Lake Homer, a cabin, last October, and it's been a project since. But we closed on it in October, and we've been looking for over five years and missed a few deals because there's bigger, fancier people out there with more money to spend. And the day we closed, we're standing in the yard, and across the lake is the lawyer that has an office across the street from my studio. And down the lake is my financial adviser, and at the other end of the lake is the oral surgeon that did Teresa's mouth. And we looked at each other and said, like–forgive the language here–but we're like, who the hell do we think we are? Like, we're a photographer and his wife. Like, we're a tiny little mom and pop shop in a small town of 10,000. How did we pull off buying a lake home, and in this market, especially. And then I kinda realized, you know what? What we do, we do at a top level. We have twenty years experience. We do this as well as any of those people do their jobs. And I guess, the high horse was I don't see the difference anymore in the value. Maybe a college degree gets you to a certain level, but the life experience and what we're doing changing kids' lives and creating impressions and all that, I think, is a very valuable experience. And I can basically say that I have people spend upwards the high 4 figures, some into the 5 figures. And if I walked up to them three years later and said, here's a check for everything I did for you three years ago, give it all back, they would say, "Not on your life." So it's a truly priceless product we offer to people and experience. So it's hard to quantify it too because it's a mix of service and product and knowledge and customer service. And I think of all the specialty things there are, and some people know how to do just that avenue of things. And we know how to do the marketing, the photography, the Photoshop, the sales, the delivery, all the things. And it's like, this is not a dime a dozen business we're in. There are burgers that cost 99¢, and there are burgers that cost $99. And in this industry, there are free photographers and your iPhone on you at all times, but to craft a portrait is actually an art that comes at a high value.

Pat Miller: 34:32

And many of the conversations on shows like this revolve around getting your certification and learning and training and image and lighting and f-stops, and all of that. Critically important, has to be done. But this conversation goes to the other side of it, which I really wanna make sure we call out, which is you have to treat your customers the way that they need to be treated. You have to go after what you want. You have to believe in yourself. You have to understand that what you're doing is important, and you're not selling what they look like. You're selling how they felt when you made them look that way. It's such a powerful reminder and something that I think you brought to the surface today.

Nate Peterson: 35:15

Yeah. I had a very famous painting artist from New York. She came to Wisconsin and had a show and was talking and asked me for the elevator pitch, what do you do? And I kinda ended it in with, like, I create albums for seniors. We have a high-end average. I said, I'm not really sure, to be honest with you, what I do different than others. And she said, "Well, it sounds like you are giving an opportunity for an adolescent." She said it very fancy. "An adolescent to come in, pour their heart out to you on who they are. You listen. You give them a safe space to be seen and heard, and then you reflect it back to them with your camera and your editing, and the product you're giving it to them in. So you are authentically listening to them and then reflecting it back and giving them something that lasts forever." And I went, that's why you're good at what you do because we sometimes drop to the lowest common denominator and think we take pictures. Like, that's just easy. But it's so much more than that when you really quantify. I teach people why they should why their prices should be set where they are, and part of that is auditing your time. Like, you think a 45-minute session is 45 minutes from start to finish, and it's not. There's all the conversation beforehand. There's the marketing you put into it, the website building, and then there's all the backing up the cards properly. There's all the service phone calls, the sales, the product ordering. And my average senior is I would have guessed; in fact, we were in a workshop, and my guess was about 12 to 14 hours thinking it's probably like that. And then when we audited it down, it was 19 hours. Woah. And now I think it's about twenty one hours. So when you put in some of these six-hour sessions are adding in three more hours. So it's what we do for somebody;, it breaks down to a very fair price for what we do. And on volume, we did a little quantifying, and our average team was $1,400 for the five hours of effort, with my wife and I doing this alone, basically, it breaks down to $280 an hour. So it's not quite lawyer fees, but it does pay the bills.

Pat Miller: 37:28

Certainly does. Let's leave the interview with this. Give me the best piece of business advice you've ever received or something that you're thinking about right now that every photographer should know.

Nate Peterson: 37:39

Okay. Every photographer should know this is a business. And I've heard this multiple times on this podcast that this is a business that sustains your creativity. It's not your creative talent that makes a business. And my financial adviser, when he was kind enough to rent me a small space in his building to get off the ground, and we've since evolved beyond that. We both had daytime jobs, careers, and he said, "This is the lifestyle you live. Pick that number. That's your salary. If you're gonna go into business for yourself, multiply it by five because one-fifth of it, 20%, will be what you take home. So to maintain that lifestyle, Nate, you don't wanna just come up with that same $40,000 or $50,000 dollars and think that that's what your gross sales has to be. You gotta multiply it by five." And that puts the that puts the can-I-do-this in the forefront because some people the industry right now is at, like, oh, I have a six-figure studio? A hundred thousand in today's world doesn't really feed your family, especially if you're only keeping 20% or 30% of that. So you have to set your goals to 250, 350, 450, 550. Something like that is where most sustainable studios should be sitting. Set your goals to realistic sustainable numbers.

Pat Miller: 39:07

Absolutely doable, especially with conversations like this one. Nate Peterson, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Nate Peterson: 39:13

Thank you, Pat. This is a brilliant podcast. I've been loving every minute of listening to it and even more pleased to be a part of it.

Pat Miller: 39:21

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the professional photographer podcast. I'm already getting excited for next week's episode. So make sure you hit subscribe so that way I–boink–magically show up in your feed. Also, bonus points if you give us a like and if you leave us a comment because we wanna know what Nate said that really made you think or maybe something you're going to borrow for your business. We'd love to hear it because that lets us know that we're on the right track. One other thing, if you're not yet a member of Professional Photographers of America, you're missing it. PPA offers incredible resources like equipment insurance, top-notch education, and a supportive community of photographers ready to help you win. It's perfect for photographers who are serious about growing their business in a sustainable and profitable way. At PPA, you belong here. Discover more about membership at PPA.com. That's PPA.com. I'm Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners Community and the publisher of the Small Business Summary newsletter. Thanks for joining us this time. We'll see you right here next time. Take care.